Pumpkin Sunrise

  I did it! I finished my hat a few days ago and instead of having five projects on the needles, I am now doing four projects. My brain loves that amount. For some reason I feel pressure with five projects. This hat was a fun project, it's the third one I've made of this design. I love the double thickness for walking in the extreme cold. It's the only hat design that I have knitted that keeps my heat toasty warm.  By the way, my daughter wove the scarf in the background of my photo. I love it so much!! She is talented and thoughtful.  What are you working on this week?

  We had some wild weather this weekend. On Saturday morning, it snowed so much that my husband had to clear the driveway before the rain set in. By Saturday night all the snow melted and it was raining until Sunday early afternoon. I decided to go for a walk after the became a scant drizzle. That is of course when the snow started and it was heavy! I was soaking wet and my shoes were leaking, so sad.  So now we have about 3-4 inches of snow to clear once again this morning. Besides the rollercoaster weather, I finished a book over the weekend and then started Glory Over Everything  as my next read. So far I find the book captivating and it is from my 'to be read' bookshelf. My goal of reading the books I already own for 2025 is going strong. I continued to work steadily on my sweater over the weekend as well. It's a comfort knit with all of those stockinette stitches. How was your weekend?

  Good morning! First and foremost, these are NOT my daffodils. I spied them in the neighborhood and was thrilled to snap a photo for you so you could see that spring is around the corner. I love February and how it slowly changes into hints of spring while clinging to winter weather. On my walk yesterday, I started with drizzle, that then turned to sleet (painful), that then turned to flakes, that then turned to drizzle. What a walk!  I felt like I went through all the emotions but I was invigorated! After some errand running yesterday, I worked on my hat and the blanket while chilling out reading my kindle. I'm reading Digital Minimalism and am enjoying it. For my real book reading, I'm still reading the short story collection The Wonder Garden, I love it. The author sprinkles in various characters from previous short stories and it is fun to see the different side of characters and their motivations through the different stories.  Holly is being majestic and owning her...

  Good morning! How are you? My knitting news is quite scant. I had high hopes of finishing this hat over the weekend but it just didn't happen. Maybe I'll finish it by next week? I do love working on this while I am watching TV or talking to people, it's hard for me to make a mistake (although never say never!).  What have you been working on this week?

  Good morning! After a crazy weekend, I am fully restored to my default settings. I have been mainly knitting on two projects. The first is my lovely pullover , working slowly on the body of the sweater, this is my TV knitting later in the evenings because I cannot make a mistake. I've also been steadily working on the baby blanket as well. I enjoy this pattern because I've knit it so much (this is the eighth time) and it is memorized.  What are you working on this week?

  Hello! How are you doing and how was your weekend? My weekend was filled with celebrating our grandson's third birthday. I cannot believe he is three. He thoroughly enjoyed the birthday singing and of course the presents. My husband and I had a great time seeing family as well. I am so happy today is a 'boring' day so I can recharge and regroup. My granddaughter wore her sweater on the party day! (I wished I had used bigger buttons...) Even though the visiting was packed with socializing, I managed to seek in some much needed knitting time. I did not finish any projects, but I did add inches to the hat and the baby blanket. After pizza and cake, I'm ready for a BIG salad and lots of healthy foods.  How was your weekend?

  Good morning! My knitting news is kind of brief. I made it to the separating of the sleeves on my top down sweater and am gloriously knitting stockinette stitch while watching mystery tv shows in the evenings.  What are you working on this week? Also, I have family get togethers this weekend, so I will not be here until early next week!

  Good morning! Today our weather is starting to warm up. Yesterday I took a walk after three days of not being outside due to the frigid weather. I was cold, but it was so nice to be outside and get some fresh air. Since I was homebound, I've been doing lots of reading, knitting and some journaling. I finished reading Conjure Women, which I highly recommend. I was captured by the plot immediately. Now I will start reading, The Wonder Garden. I cannot remember where I bought this book and I have no idea what is about as of yet.  This past Wednesday we had no water in the evening for about five hours due to a water main break on our street. I felt empathetic towards the people working in the frigid temperatures to bring back the water. I tried to not be too annoyed by the inconvenience. But I am now living in a state of gratitude for running water. Another book I am starting today is Digital Minimalism  with the hopes of downsizing my time online. I have drastically cut do...

  Good morning! How are you and how are your projects this week? We are in a deep freeze and so I knit. It's one of the best things about being a knitter. I am almost done with the raglan increases of this sweater and hopefully by next week will be sailing through the body of the sweater! I've been enjoying this project immensely! What are you working on?

  Hello! How are you? How was your weekend? My weekend was ultra relaxing but I made it so. I've been enjoying reading and knitting, sometimes at the same time, in the afternoons before I start cooking. I love the change of seasons and how I move with them. In the summer, I hardly feel like knitting much but I do. In the winter, I can't get enough of knitting. I've mainly worked on my hat or my sweater  on Saturday and Sunday. I walked yesterday and I believe that is the last walk outside until the end of the week. It will be too cold. That doesn't stop me from exercising in the house though. It's been so cold I washed eight pairs of wool socks yesterday! A record.  We really didn't do much this weekend except go to a nephew's birthday party on Saturday afternoon at my sister's house and attend church on Sunday. I've been hibernating. I love winter for the cosy hibernating. Holly says 'hello', she is waiting for her beloved (husband) to come...

  Good morning to you! How have you been?  My knitting is on fire these days. I have three main projects that get equal treatment and spark immense joy. Above is the sweater that I am knitting along with my sister. I love the color and the construction so far of the sweater pattern and the yarn is very tweedy. Next up is my hat which is my third musselburgh hat pattern. Nothing is so satisfying as knitting endless stockinette stitch when you are reading a book or talking to someone. Lastly, I have a shawl on the needles, but I think there was a mistake in the lace portion of the pattern so I am correcting it along the way (and it could be that I made a mistake that I am fixing along the way!) I am pretty confident in my pattern alterations but my fingers are crossed if I have to fudge further along in the pattern as I continue to knit along. What are you working on this week?

  Good morning! How are you? I am doing great and the weekend was fun. My sister and my aunt celebrated birthdays this weekend. Actually a lot of my family have birthdays in January, do you have a month where all you do is celebrate a birthday? On Saturday, my sister and my brother in law came over for a lasagna dinner along with board game night. We celebrated her birthday on that day as well. I'm hoping all this game playing is good for the brain, it's definitely good for boosting happiness. My sister and I ordered a sweater kit from Woolly Thistle and started our sweaters on Saturday. What fun!!  My January so far has been a knitting starting frenzy, the cold crisp weather inspires me. Yesterday, my family all met at the william penn hotel in Pittsburgh to have a brunch buffet to celebrate my aunt's birthday. It was nice to be with family and eat good food. I have some exciting news! Our son, his wife and the two kids will be moving here somewhere in the greater Pittsb...

  Good morning! How are you doing? How is January so far? After my company left last weekend, I have put my house back to the way it was and fully recharged my battery with lots of knitting and reading. I am working on another hat (remember it's hat-knitting mojo for me right now). I started a new book to read and it's one from my shelves which will count towards my ultimate goal of reading what I own and then donating the book out of the house. Sometimes I keep books if I find them extraordinarily touching. I've struggled with maintaining my walking outside, there is a limit to how cold I can be. I continue to exercise inside with my weights and doing yoga poses. Even though it's cold, I continue to love winter the most. My creativity soars in brisk weather! I have exciting news to share. As you know, Holly only loves my husband and shows that love only to him. Well, other day she gave me some head butts for the FIRST time ever. I felt so loved by her, then she took a ...

  Good morning! How are you doing?  We've been so lucky to have snow flurries every single day this week and it's beautiful. It's quite chilly out so walking has been brisk - I toy with not walking outside each day, but then I'll walk a bit giving myself the option to turn around and go home if I am too cold. Usually, I keep on walking. I can tolerate the cold more so than the unbearable heat in the summer. I finished my hat ! I received this beautiful yarn bundle from my sister for my birthday in November. I loved choosing the striping sequence and it was fun to knit little bits of mini skeins. Even burying all those thread ends wasn't a chore but a delight.  I wanted a loose hat (I dislike tight hats, I feel colder in them) and I wanted the hat to be slouchy. I just created this hat out of my head with a slightly educated guess to the size. I knit the length until I felt it was long enough on my head with some slouchiness.  Over all my guessing turned out great!

  Hello! It's been some time hasn't it? My family is still here visiting but it's nap time and I'm quickly making this post a priority because when my family leaves on Saturday morning I will be putting away Christmas decorations and then I will need to recover physically from that. I hope to be back at this space sometime next week. I'm having a great time with the grandchildren, lots of playing (and crying, ha ha). We went to the museum the other day to look at the dinosaurs and that was a ton of fun. What wasn't fun is that my son arrived with some kind of stomach bug but luckily no one else got it from him. That is the Christmas miracle that warms my heart.  I still have my arthritis flare, I think it will stay with me until they leave and I can completely rest for three days. It's mostly my hands and wrists. It's not from knitting since I am barely knitting. The above project is a hat that is almost finished! I will start decreasing soon. I want it...

  Hello! How are you? How have you been?  I've been knee deep in knitting and enjoying the quiet after some busy days celebrating Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we went to my sister and brother in law's house for dinner and celebrated with her family. After dinner we attended Christmas Eve Mass. Christmas Day was by ourselves with lots and lots of phone calls to the kids, his mother and my dad.  I casted on a new hat before Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day. The striped hat below was the first hat started. I haven't snapped a photo of the second one. Apparently I am in a hat-knitting frame of mind.  My son and his family arrive tomorrow for an entire week. So you know what that means....I will be posting irregularly until they leave. So if I am not posting, it's because I am having fun with little ones who take all my attention (and my energy!). 

  Good morning! How are you? This weekend was one of the best weekends ever because we got snow and it was unpredicted which made it all the more special. I even took a walk during the squalls but decided to cut the walk short. Brr. Besides wintry weather, I am proud to announce I am ready for Christmas. We are going over to my sister's house for Christmas Eve dinner and do our exchanging with her family. It will be fun. Christmas day is just the two of us at home, plus lots of phone calls to family far away.  My son and his family arrive on Saturday for a whole week visit. I am excited about that. I am not ready for that, but I will be. (lists are my friend) The above photo is the morning moon winking at me. The very first photo is the odyssey shawl  I started before my car trip. I have ripped this back twice because I keep forgetting the pattern and keep knitting thinking I know the pattern.  I finished my husband's musselburgh hat , this will be in his Christmas S...

  Grab a cup of tea, this will take a while. How are you? How's your week been? I have been thoroughly enjoying this Advent season! I cannot believe we are near the end. Time does fly. We left on Sunday to help out with babysitting on Monday and Tuesday and arrived back home on Wednesday this past week. We had excellent driving weather both to and from Indiana. Sadly all my photos cannot be shared with the internet of the kids. I don't feel right doing so. So just imagine me and my husband being on the go from 8 am until 8 pm unless it was nap time. Our grandson is almost three years old and our granddaughter is 16 months old and both are fun. I have wiped my distant memory of taking care of little ones and wonder how I had the energy. I am now battling an arthritis flare (it is a small one so not a big deal) and I know it's from traveling and doing too much. I still knit a lot on the car rides and I started a new project but you'll have to wait for me to create a proje...

  How are you? How are you doing as we lead up to the holidays? I am getting things done bit by bit aided my a very detailed to do list. I finished my granddaughter's hat a week or so ago and forgot to show you! This project was a fun quick easy knit. Below is a photo of my husband's hat that I would love to finish before Christmas. For incentives for me to finish on time, I started placing a marker before I start knitting for the day so I could see my progress. It appears I knit one inch or so a day. As of today I am confident I will meet my goal. Lastly, I restarted a pair of mitts for myself with some lovely wool my daughter gave me for Mother's day. The original pattern I chose was too hard for me to see the stitches to do the cabling and there were mistakes in the pattern that I knew needed to be corrected before knitting. I can do both but I just didn't have the mental bandwidth to do it. The older I get, the harder it is to see dark wool in the evenings even w...

  Good morning! Boy have I missed you guys. I had a fantastic visit with family and spent some quality time with the grandkids. They left yesterday morning and I put my house back together again once more. They will be visiting again shortly after Christmas for an extended period of time. I am so lucky! My knitting was non-existent while they were here. I continue to work on the second Musselburgh hat for my husband who sees me knitting it but doesn't know it's for him, ha ha ha. I've been feeling under the weather but I am convinced it's my auto-immune disease, so I've been taking it easy, hydrating and keeping my fingers crossed. So far this plan is working! What are you working on this week?